TWO SPACES AFTER A PERIOD? DEAD AS A DODO
Welcome to the 21st century and the wonderful world of computers. These things are so damn smart that they can actually decide - almost consciously - how to space out the letters we write in a word processor. No, seriously, they can look at each letter in turn and space them so that things look just peachy.

This contrasts with those 20th century pieces of mechanical arcana know as typewriters, whose very name is a giveway as to what they did - write using type. In the 21st century, we use things called fonts rather than type, and unlike your old Smith-Corona, you have many, many different fonts to chose from. This is, of course, both a Good Thing and a Bad Thing. It is a Bad Thing if you get into the mindset that an article improves in direct proportion to the number of fonts used. This is stunningly wrong, as can be evidenced by any amateur offering that appears to have more fonts than Paris Hilton has sex partners.

No, the fewer the fonts, the more readable the work. Any article that looks like a ransom letter or the deranged outpourings of a Frankensteinian typesetter should be set ablaze and the ashes returned to the writer.

Another feature of 21st century word processors is that they can make the space between a period and following upper-case letter sufficiently distinct that you have no need to use two spaces to highlight the difference. The rule of "two spaces after a period" (full stop for my UK readers) is a relic of the previous century, tied inextricably to the limitations of the typewriter. There is absolutely no need to waste that extra space.

Think about it; adding two spaces instead of one actually means one redundant keystroke at the end of every sentence. For someone writing a novel, how many extra strokes is that? It's also worth remembering - or even learning - that a space is not a "nothing" in a computer's memory, but it really does take up bits and bytes in a document.

Of course, if you are a student trying to turn in a paper that you've started working on some three hours before the deadline, the two spaces may lengthen your essay significantly. You might also want to change the size of your font in an uppward direction; change your document margins to, say, 3 inches all around; double space your lines; and insert large, semi-pertinent graphics. Turning 100 words into a 20-page document isn't difficult.

Alas, some academics have cottoned on to this abuse of technology and see through the deception. Still, there are plenty of them who have yet to move into the current century and automatically continue to use the two-spaces rule. For some older academics (aged 30 and above) change is very difficult. Some will actually write long, pretentious articles about why the two spaces should remain, but this is ususally because (a) they have been caught out by peers and students and want to justify their error, (b) are not as smart as they think they are and don't understand the need to change, and (c) have way too much time on their hands and deserve to have their grants taken away from them.

So do yourself a favor and get with the program: one space after a period.

Period.